A nightmare in Nuseirat

Looking out my window, I saw vast numbers of people fleeing. Israeli military tanks were approaching Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

The scene felt wearily familiar. I have witnessed previous horrors.

Israel’s extreme violence had caused me to leave Gaza City for Nuseirat during the early stages of the current genocide.

I was desperate to make contact with my husband when the 8 June invasion began.

He was working in a clinic run by the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA). The clinic is located in the heart of the Nuseirat camp.

Frantically, I dialed his number. No reply.

My husband did make it home safely later that day. His testimony of what occurred was frightening.

He spoke about how the sounds of chatter and business that normally fill Nuseirat’s streets were replaced with cries of pain.

He spoke about a general sense of panic.

He spoke about how “bodies littered the streets and the injured struggled to find help.”

Nedaa al-Tahrawi was at home in Nuseirat when she heard gunfire piercing the air.

Her family quickly assembled in one room after hearing her brother shout that the camp was being invaded.

“The situation was terrifying,” Nedaa said. “Before long, there was a deafening explosion that shook the ground itself.”

The family tried to flee their home. But there was a huge crater outside which meant they could not escape.

“In a matter of minutes, our house and neighboring houses were reduced to rubble,” Nedaa said. “We were trapped in a nightmare.”

Nedaa’s brother was among the very many people injured during the massacre.

More than 270 Palestinians were killed. Yet that fact was completely overlooked by Joe Biden, the US president, who welcomed the attack on Nuseirat as it invovled the rescue of four Israeli captives.

Zainab al-Jamal was injured in the attack, which killed her father, her brother and his wife.

In a Facebook post, Zainab wrote about how Israel’s soldiers stormed into her home and opened fire.

Zainab and some other members of her family managed to hide under a bed and somehow evaded detection.

When the gunfire eventually halted, Zainab emerged from beneath the bed to find her father’s dead body.

Zainab wrote of closing “my eyes in pain, trying to shield the children from noticing, as we evacuated the house before it collapsed on us.”